


the beat of a different drum

by taizi



Series: full circle [2]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, aka the continuation literally no one wanted, that one au where nishimura can see yokai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 15:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10165895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: Kitamoto says, “In all this time, have youeverbeen able to lie to me?”“Oh,” Nishimura says, feeling the weight of the circle on his chest. “Dude. Not evenonce.”





	

Nishimura doesn’t make a habit out of lying to his friends. He’s pathetically unpracticed at skirting around the truth, and until recently he would have considered that a _good_ thing.

But when Natsume asks him if he got rid of the yokai circle, Nishimura says, “Yeah, of course,” and even spreads his empty palms for good measure. Natsume relaxes with a wide smile, and the circle seems to burn under Nishimura’s shirt where he drew it carefully in the bathroom mirror the night before, square on the front of his left shoulder.

It’s not such a big lie that someone’s feelings will get hurt, Nishimura reasons to himself when his insides are at their squirmiest. And Natsume lies all the time about _everything,_ so really, fair is fair.

Except that Nishimura knows better. Natsume lies from a good place, a kind and caring place. He’s just trying to keep the bad an arms length away from the good.

Nishimura has only caught fleeting glimpses here and there of his quiet friend’s hidden world since the day he met Yumemi. There have been impossibly tall and tapered shadows following his own down a sidewalk he’s alone on; voices too deep or too high to be human echoing across empty parking lots; disembodied eyes and phantom footsteps and weightless fingers that touch his hair.

He jumps about a foot in the air one day when tiny figures run through his mom’s vegetable garden. Stares in fascinated horror while a shop owner’s cat bats playfully at a spectral figure lounging in the window. Passes the same boarded-up house on his way home from cram school that he always has, only lately he’s heard someone singing from inside.

He’s never once washed the circle away, though. He’s never once even been tempted to smudge the lines.

Because Natsume may not _need_ his help, may not even _want_ it, but sometimes things _happen._ Sometimes something chokes Natsume in the classroom, or pushes him off a bridge, or chases him through the forest so ruthlessly that branches and sharp briars tear up his clothes and his skin and he doesn’t have more than a minute to stop and catch his breath.

Sometimes he goes cold, stepping away from his friends with dark eyes and a pale smile that might as well be a door slamming shut between them. He’ll say, “I forgot something, you go on ahead,” and they won’t see him again for hours. And until a handful of days ago, Nishimura never knew why.

So.

Nishimura makes sure the diagram never fades. He’s gotten pretty good at drawing it from memory by now. He keeps a copy in his desk at home, just in case he forgets. Kitamoto knows him well enough to know he’s hiding _something,_ and Tanuma has taken up giving him these sharp, sidelong looks when he shudders at a long shadow or a lilting voice around the corner – but no one says anything, and nothing happens, and Nishimura keeps drawing his circle, keeps a careful eye on his friend.

Kitamoto walks home with him from cram school now and then. Each time he mentions that he knows a shortcut, and each time Nishimura turns it down. He likes walking by the boarded-up house. The singing really grows on you.

“We’ve been friends for awhile, haven’t we?” Kitamoto says out of nowhere, while shadows stretch longer in the dusk and streetlights buzz helpfully overhead. 

Nishimura gives him the incredulous look he deserves. “‘Awhile’ is kind of a mild word for it. I’ve known you since before I could _walk_ , Acchan.”

Chuckling a little, Kitamoto doesn’t look at him. There’s a wry smile kissing just the corners of his mouth, something soft and stern at the same time, and Nishimura realizes this is going to be a Thing. Something important. Kitamoto’s just building up to it. 

Kitamoto says, “In all this time, have you _ever_ been able to lie to me?”

“Oh,” Nishimura says, feeling the weight of the circle on his chest. “Dude. Not even _once.”_

“Yeah. So is there anything you want to tell me?”

It’s pointed, but it’s not forceful. He’s asking, because Nishimura usually tells him _everything_ by default, but he won’t make him part with any secrets he isn’t ready to let go of. 

And actually, maybe, Nishimura’s _more_ than ready to let them go. He doesn’t like this, this swooping guilt and sickly suspense every time he has to be dishonest. He doesn’t like being afraid to turn out the light at night and having no one to talk to about it because no one else _knows._

But he thinks of Natsume, kind and brittle Natsume, who has kept more secrets and told more lies than anyone Nishimura has ever met before, who has yet to be broken by the way the weight of them bow his back. Natsume, who smiles despite the darkness he sees. Natsume, who keeps them safe from the world he knows, the only way he knows how. 

And Nishimura clings to the secrets a little tighter. 

“A ghost got a song stuck in my head,” he says plainly. “How messed up is that?” And he says it with a grin, disarming and cheerful and totally a target for the fondly aggrieved shove Kitamoto aims at his shoulder. 

Natsume may be a liar, but he’ll tell them the truth one day, Nishimura’s sure of it. He’ll be so sure of his place by their side that he won’t be afraid to tell his friends what he sees. He’ll be so certain that they love him that he’ll put out his hand and ask for their help all on his own, and he’ll do it with a hopeful smile. 

One day. 

Until then, Nishimura will draw circles and tell lies and look after him. 

Natsume has been alone in this for a long, long time. Nishimura can be alone in it, together with him, for a little while longer.


End file.
